


So Tell Me Where To Find You

by LayALioness



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Penelope Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:05:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4696784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s a long story.”</p><p>“What, like you’re allergic to sunlight or something?”</p><p>“Or something,” she agrees.</p><p>“You’re like an enchanted princess,” he decides. “Hidden away.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Tell Me Where To Find You

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY this is finally finished. It took a while, because I was having computer problems, and also because I just get sidetracked easily oops.
> 
> Title from With Wings by Amy Stroup

Clarke Griffin was born to the good life; old money, blue blooded, society sweethearts for the last hundred years.

Except, a hundred years earlier, they’d been cursed by a witch. No one knew for what, really, though there are only so many things to be cursed for. And she’d specifically cursed the next daughter of the family, too, so that must have meant _something_.

And then, for seventy years, no daughters were born, which was a little boring. No one forgot the curse, though, and they always held their breath just before the birth, waiting to see what would come out.

Finally, sometime in the late eighties, a little girl was born to the older Griffin boy, and she was dark haired and rosy-cheeked and perfectly ordinary. Everyone had worried for nothing, they thought.

Until five years later, when the younger Griffin married his college sweetheart, and they had a little girl, too. She was named Clarke, and she was _special_. She was born with two ears, nestled up high on her head, and covered in downy blonde fur. They twitched when anyone touched them. She also had wings—tawny feathered, just little nubs when she was born, but growing larger every day. A lion’s tail, with a small gold tuft of hair at the end, curled up between her legs.

(Once news of the youngest Griffin reached the papers, Clarke’s aunt and uncle got divorced rather quickly.)

It was impossible to avoid the paparazzi after that—everyone wanted a glimpse of the strange girl. Photographers would camp out in the garden, and one even climbed into the nursery before Lexa, the governess, could catch him. That’s when Mrs. Griffin decided enough was enough, and there was nothing to be done but fake her daughter’s death.

The country mourned the loss of such a young, if a little odd, life. Jake and Abby Griffin moved into a secluded estate in the country, and faded into obscurity. And everything else went back to normal.

Except, of course, for the suitors.

Clarke calls them modern-day balls—she lives tucked away in a veritable tower, behind mirrors and locked doors. A lot about her life resembles old fairytales—her mother and Anya, the hired matchmaker, find eligible bachelors and bachelorettes of high status and interview them. Then, once they’ve signed the appropriate _keep-your-mouth-shut_ contracts, they have them all congregate in the study, where Clarke can see them through a one-way mirror, and try to win them over with her own charm through the intercom. Once they seem appropriately interested, and unlikely to faint from terror at the sight of her, she steps into the room.

She never gets to actually introduce herself, before they scream. And they always run.

One jumped out the window, once. Lincoln had to scrape him out of the rosebushes.

If it weren’t for Lincoln and Lexa—and sometimes even Anya—Clarke knows she would have gone properly insane by now.

“What about me?” Wick teases, kicking his feet up on the table, carefully avoiding her wings. He offers her a bag of microwave popcorn. Any minute now, Anya will lead a herd of good-looking, blue blooded men and women into the room on the other side of the mirror. Wick claims he likes to watch so he can heckle their choice in fashion, but Clarke suspects he just comes for moral support.

“You, I tolerate,” she says primly, taking a handful of popcorn. He tugs at her tail, affectionately. She only wears skirts and dresses these days, because anything trickier is just a hassle. She went through a pants phase in her teenage years, and so Lexa and Wick helped her cut holes in the backs of dozens of jeans and cargos. The time and effort just isn’t worth it, in the end.

Lexa walks in, carrying a bowl of unwrapped milk duds. “An even more insufferable batch, this time around,” she declares with a frown. “Anya really has outdone herself.”

“You say that about all rich people,” Clarke says, amused. Lexa sends Wick a glare, and he blows her a kiss.

“That’s because they are all insufferable,” Lexa explains. “With the exception of you, of course.” She pauses. “And, I suppose, your father.”

“Shh, it’s starting,” Wick crows, delighted.

Sure enough, the study door opens, and they all file in. They’re dressed to the nines, with gelled-back hair for the men and demure coifs for the women. They’ve got their contracts in hand, and they sort of look like actors all trying out for the same spot in a Clearasil commercial. Lexa was right, as usual; they do look pretty insufferable.

“At least they’re hot,” Wick shrugs. “They’ll look good, running away.” He waggles his eyebrows at Clarke until she laughs.

It’s been seven years, now—since she was fourteen and her mother caught her kissing one of the maid’s daughters—seven years of trying not to get her hopes up, and then being disappointed, anyway. At this point she _has_ to laugh, so that she doesn’t cry, instead.

Clarke leans forward to press the button on her microphone. “Would anyone who voted for our current Senator please leave.” Wick and Lexa wear matching smirks as most of the men and two of the women walk out, clearly confused.

“And anyone who doesn’t _know_ who our current Senator is,” Clarke adds, and four more follow the others out, while Wick throws some popcorn at the mirror. That’s how it goes for a while; process of elimination, until just one man and one woman are left. They’re both cute, the boy in a calm and collected sort of way, while the girl fidgets beside him. They look about her age.

“Please leave if you’re uncomfortable with having lots of vulgar, ridiculous sex,” Clarke says into the mic, and the boy coughs, probably to hide his laughter. The girl flushes bright red, and excuses herself. Wick howls so loudly, Clarke’s almost sure they’ll hear through the mirror.

Once the study door is shut, leaving only the boy, looking amused on the sofa, Clarke leans forward again. “What’s your name?”

“Finn Collins,” the boy says. She hasn’t heard of his family, but that doesn’t mean much. She tends to zone out whenever her mother starts in about _people of their social standing_. “And you’re, uh, Clarke?” he hedges.

Lexa scoffs “Obviously,” around a mouthful of chocolate, and Wick throws some popcorn at her.

“Yes,” Clarke hesitates. This is always the awkward part; the one-on-one, where she tries to be charming and witty and funny enough so when they finally see her, they don’t run right away. It’s hard to get her hopes up after so many failures, but. “I didn’t actually mean the part about the vulgar sex,” she admits, and Wick chokes on his snack. Lexa pats his back a little wryly, and then kicks him in the shin.

“How disappointing,” Finn says amiably. “That’s really what sold this thing, for me. Now I’m not sure we’ll work out.”

She’s charmed, despite herself. She really hopes he isn’t a fainter. “I’m afraid that once you see me, you won’t feel that way.” Clarke worries her lip a little, trying to keep everything light. It’s better, to think of it all as a joke.

“Yes, I sort of assumed as much, since I had to sign a contract promising not to tell anyone what you look like,” Finn teases.

“You still came, though,” Clarke points out.

“Well, I also heard you’re a blonde,” he quips, and she laughs.

“Ten bucks says he’s actually gay,” Wick says, and Lexa shakes on it.

“I’m going out,” Clarke tells them, and then says into the mic “You’ll be able to see for yourself in five seconds.” She fidgets with her skirt and hair for a moment, and then rolls her eyes at herself because _she has wings and a tail_. She’s wearing a knit hat over her ears, because they’re so sensitive, so at least he won’t see those immediately. The rest is probably more than enough, though.

She steps through the door to the side of the mirror, that leads into the study. Finn stares for more than a minute, which is usually the amount of time it takes for strangers to start screaming, or running through windows. But he also isn’t stepping any closer, and the soft smile is gone. More than anything, he looks a little sick, which isn’t very promising.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Clarke sighs.

“It’s alright,” she shrugs. “At least you didn’t scream, or call me a monster.” Finn frowns.

“That actually happens?”

Clarke shrugs again. “Usually they just faint.”

Finn shakes his head, looking a little ashamed. “I really only—my father made me come,” he admits. “I’m sort of dating someone already, but,” he makes a face. “My parents think she’s beneath _our social standing_ , whatever that means.”

“I understand,” Clarke says, and she does. She’d much rather he be honest with her now, than lead her on only to break her heart later. It’s still disappointing, though.

“I really hope you find someone,” he says, earnest, and then hugs her. He clearly doesn’t know where to put his hands, because of her wings, and ends up petting them a little. Lincoln escorts him out, firmly reminding him that he signed a contract, and gripping his arm a little tighter than altogether necessary.

Wick comes out and drapes an arm over Clarke’s shoulders and she sighs, leaning into him. “I don’t know why they don’t just let me live out my life as a spinster,” she whines.

“Yeah, you can just be the crazy old plant lady in the big house,” he agrees.

Growing up without ever leaving her house meant Clarke did a lot of reading, about a lot of different things. At sixteen she went through a horticulture phase, that never really ended, so her room is filled with Norfolk Island Pines, Peperomia, Philodendrons, and Basil along every windowsill.

She also tried to take up knitting, but proved too impatient for that particular hobby. She has a basket full of single socks, and half-finished scarves. She gave one to Lincoln for Christmas when she was fourteen, even though it didn’t even tie all the way around his neck. He still keeps it on his person at all times, like some sort of treasure.

“It doesn’t help that you keep sabotaging yourself,” Anya grouses at lunch the next day. They’re eating fried pork, because Abby refuses to let them eat chicken, due to the whole _wings_ thing.

“He already had a girlfriend,” Clarke argues, “How is that _my_ fault?”

“We do listen to the tapes, dear,” Mr. Griffin says, a little pink around the ears. Clarke actively refuses to feel embarrassed.

“I’m tired of the balls,” she declares, not for the first time. “I hate trying to convince people I’m nice, and likable, and then having them scream or run away the moment they see me. It’s awful, and degrading, and I’m tired of it.”

“Clarke,” Abby sighs, _also_ not for the first time. “I know you’re tired—we’re _all_ tired—but the sooner we find you a spouse, the sooner the curse is broken and this whole mess is over.”

Clarke doesn’t point out that by _this whole mess_ , she means _her_. She doesn’t have to; they already know.

“How do we even know that’s how the curse is broken?” Clarke asks, petulantly tearing her sandwich into pieces. Her mother swats at her hands. “What if it doesn’t work?”

The cure to the curse has been passed through the family for generations, like a lullaby. _Once someone of her kind says I do._ It’s pretty obvious, but Clarke’s read enough Grimm stories to know it’s probably misleading. Witches are sneaky—everyone knows that. So, while everyone else is convinced that marriage to a blue blood like her is the answer, she’s not really sold on the idea.

“If it doesn’t work, we’ll get the marriage annulled and try again,” Abby says, pragmatic as usual.

“But I’m the only one of my kind, _really_ ,” Clarke points out.

“That we know of,” Anya corrects. “Ninety percent of the oceans are unexplored.”

“So, worst case scenario, you marry a mermaid,” Mr. Griffin muses. “Or merman.”

Abby ignores them. “There’s always Cage Wallace.”

Clarke, Anya, and Jake shudder simultaneously. “Absolutely not,” Clarke declares darkly. Cage Wallace was one of the first suitors, and while the rest had run away in terror, he’d chosen to instead to call her every word synonymous with _monster_ , and a few creatively made up ones, for good measure. Lexa had thrown a book at him.

His father, some variant of a Lord or something, was so embarrassed by his son’s behavior, that he issued a proposal; if Clarke couldn’t find someone else to marry her by her twenty-second birthday, Cage would step up to the plate. She can’t think of anything more horrifying.

“We’ll see how the next round goes,” Abby sighs, standing. “But if it doesn’t work out, you should probably get used to the idea of marrying Cage.” She leaves, effectively putting an end to the conversation.

“I’ll start looking for people outside the usual parameters,” Anya promises. “But if you don’t want to be Mrs. Wallace anytime soon,” she makes a face, “You need to start actually _trying_.”

Clarke pokes miserably at what’s left of her sandwich, while her father pats her shoulder consolingly. “Think of the mermaids,” he suggests. “Or maybe we could visit the local aviary at the zoo—I’m sure some eagle will find you quite fetching.”

Her father used to sneak her out when she was little, only in the winter so bundling up in a knit hat and two jackets wouldn’t look so out of place. He’d take her to the movies, or the bowling alley, or the zoo, which was her favorite. They’d eat pizza and ice cream until they felt sick, and she’d spend hours staring at the Bald Eagles and California Condors. But as she got older, her wings got too big to hide, and covering them for any length of time was painful, so their outings stopped altogether.

“What weird abstract concept are you reading about now?” Wick asks, barging into her bedroom. She’s been cooped up in here all week, mostly to avoid her mother and feel sorry for herself. She glances up at her cousin over the top of her book—it’s clearly _The Prisoner of Azkaban_ , but Wick likes to act like she only reads obscure autobiographies by ostrich wranglers, or people that make pens.

He plops into the beanbag opposite hers, and tosses something at her foot. It’s a post card from Brussels, which means it’s from Wells.

“Harper says hello,” Wick adds blatantly, even though Clarke knows it’s probably a lie. “Can you believe _she’s_ the one everyone cares about? There are still paps following her around in _Europe_.” He rolls his eyes and stretches out, to take up more room than he needs. “The whole world is missing out on this face,” he points to himself, “Just because _she’s_ the ‘fake first Griffin girl.’” He says the last bit with air quotes, which isn’t unusual. Wick uses more air quotes than should ever be used.

Clarke picks up the post card and skims the back. It’s all very cordial—he mentions the weather, the food, and the artwork, in that order, and then asks how she’s been. Things have been strained between them, ever since he and Harper started dating, and Clarke just wishes they could go back to normal. Growing up, it was always just assumed that he’d be the one she married, and she loved Wells, so she was fine with that. But then he went and fell in love with her cousin—and while she’s happy for them, it’s hard not to feel a little rejected.

The two recently got engaged, and are on a whirlwind European tour in celebration. Clarke sent them a basket of blue roses she engineered herself, and then she and Lexa and Wick spent the night trolling people on tindr. They would have invited Lincoln to join them, but Lincoln thinks lying to people on the internet is immoral. He might be right.

“I’m thinking I might run away,” Clarke says. Truthfully, she hadn’t been thinking that, until the moment she said it out loud. But it seems like the kind of thing she should do.

Wick laughs a little, but when she doesn’t even grin, he reconsiders. “You’re serious,” he realizes, but doesn’t sound at all surprised. “When?”

Clarke shrugs, getting up to tape the post card up with all the other ones Wells has sent her. They cover most of a wall. “Before Cage,” she decides.

“Sounds reasonable,” Wick shrugs, and then pulls out the chessboard. “Just send me a post card from wherever you end up.”

She tells Lexa later that night, while they eat Pad Thai and binge-watch _Murder She Wrote_. Lexa, admittedly, was very young when the Griffin’s first hired her, but she still looks unfairly young even twenty-two years later. She should, by all rights, have the laugh lines and crow’s feet of a woman approaching her forties, but she doesn’t look a day older than twenty-five. Clarke thinks it’s probably creepy, to have a crush on her governess, but it’s not like she really even _is_ a governess, any more. She’s more like a very close friend, who gets paid to spend time with her.

That fact that she’s paid to spend time with her is, probably, even worse.

“That seems rather drastic,” Lexa frowns at her eggroll.

Clarke shrugs. For all the years she’s been locked in this mansion, she’s never actually tried to run away, before. She feels like she’s pretty much earned the right to rebel a little.

She mentions that to Lincoln, when she tells him, and he doesn’t actually say anything, but he smiles a little, which means he agrees. When she tells Wick about it over their next game of chess, he just shakes his head.

“You probably shouldn’t tell _everyone_ that you’re running away, if you want to keep it a secret,” he chides, stealing her pawn with his bishop. Wick is secretly good at chess, but mostly just tries to steal all her pawns.

“I’m amassing a pawn army,” he explained once, “They’re like bees; sure, _one_ isn’t able to do much, but when you have fifty of them together, no one’s laughing, because they have fifty bees in their face.” Clarke still always wins.

“I’m not telling everyone,” she argues, stealing his bishop. “Just the ones that matter.”

He tries to hide his smile at that; Wick only likes to show emotion under a thick veil of sarcasm and bad jokes. She checkmates him, and grins.

In the end, she doesn’t run away because of Cage. She doesn’t even make it past the week.

Three nights after she first told Wick, Clarke finds a man in the study. Normally, this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but when she finds him, it’s a quarter past midnight, and she knows for a fact Anya hasn’t scheduled any one-on-one’s for that night. Clarke’s only up to check on her newest batch of foxglove, which she’s planning to enter into a nightshade competition up in New Hampshire.

To get to her indoor greenhouse, she has to pass by the two-way mirror, and that’s when she sees the man. He’s dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, with worn out shoes and messy hair, and he’s staring openly at her books.

He’s an attractive man, objectively speaking, but she’d like him a lot better if he wasn’t clearly trying to steal one of her favorite volumes. It’s a first edition, but little-known, and in the original Latin, so not worth very much. Clearly, he doesn’t know that, because he’s chosen to take that one instead of all the very expensive first editions in the room.

Clarke could easily scream, and Lincoln would be there in a moment, ready to cart the thief off to the police. But, she can’t really resist leaning into the microphone and saying, “I’m afraid you’ve chosen very poorly.”

The man jumps about three feet in the air and glances around wildly. It’s very satisfying. He reluctantly pulls the book from his pocket with a wry grin. “Why do you say that?” he asks the room at large. It’s dark, and he can’t see the speakers.

“It’s the most worthless out of my collection,” Clarke explains. “Written by a nobody, read by almost no one, gone out of print within the year it was published.”

“But still your favorite,” the man says, and Clarke drops the mic on her foot. Cursing, she hastily picks it back up. It was just a lucky guess.

“What makes you say that?” she echoes, and he opens it up to the front page.

“Clarke’s book,” he reads, from her messy eleven-year-old scrawl. “It was read by a few people,” he says, glancing up. Not at her, because he doesn’t know she’s behind the mirror, but she can still see his eyes. “It was read by me.”

“How’d you get in here?” Clarke asks, intrigued, despite herself. She can still call Lincoln, if she needs to.

The man puts the book down and raises both hands, wiggling his fingers. “Opposable thumbs.”

“How’d you know I had the book?” she huffs. It can’t be public knowledge; after all, the public thinks she’s dead.

“A friend,” he says, infuriatingly vague. “Why haven’t you called the police, yet?”

“Why haven’t you run away?” she counters, and he shrugs.

“Is it true you’ve never been outside?” he asks, ignoring the question.

“No,” Clarke says, and then adds, “Well, not since I was seven.”

The man nods, sitting down on the sofa, looking decidedly casual for having just been caught stealing. “So you haven’t had to deal with left turns yielding to traffic,” he says, grim. “Lucky you.”

Clarke laughs, without really meaning too, and her hand’s still on the button, so he hears it. He looks a little smug at the sound. “What’s it like out there?” she asks, a little more wistful than she probably should. “Really?”

“Honestly?” he lets out a whistle. “Pretty great. I mean, there’s taxes, and the flu, and traffic jams. But there’s literally everything else, which makes it worth it.” He glances around again, less like he’s taking in the room, and more like he’s trying to find her. He settles on the mirror, probably because it’s obvious. “Why can’t you leave?”

“I’m, uh,” Clarke laughs a little, exasperated. She’s never had to explain her situation before; they usually already _know_. “It’s a long story.”

He looks unimpressed. “What, like you’re allergic to sunlight or something?”

“Or something,” she agrees.

“You’re like an enchanted princess,” he decides. “Hidden away.”

Clarke just stares for a moment, hand hovering over the button, because _how many times had she thought that?_ “Does that make you my knight, or something?” she teases, but her voice is strained so the effect is lost.

“Or something,” he teases. He looks thoughtful for a moment, and then stands up abruptly. “Just a sec,” he offers, and then crawls out the window.

He’s back within a minute, carrying something with his shirt, like a basket. Clarke can see the lower half of his stomach, and then feels creepy for staring, because he doesn’t _know_ she’s staring.

If his smirk is any indication, though, he’s probably pretty sure.

He crosses over to the coffee table, and drops his shirt down over it. Dirt, and a few of the purple headed weeds Clarke liked as a girl topple out.

She can’t help it; she laughs. _Hard_. He just—he looks so _pleased_ with himself. “I can go into the gardens,” she teases, but it’s sweet, really. He tried to bring the outside to her.

He shrugs. “Next time, I’ll bring weeds fromsomeone _else’s_ garden, then,” he says, nonchalant. Like it’s just _assumed_ there’ll be a next time.

No one’s ever _come back_ , before. Clarke can’t breathe for a minute, at the thought.

“When?” she asks, still a little breathless. He gives a soft smile.

“Tomorrow?” he tries. “In the daylight, so I don’t get run out by the butler.”

“Who says we have a butler?” Clarke asks, teasing, and trying very hard not to imagine him back here, with her, natural and easy like he belongs there.

He quirks an eyebrow at the mirror. “Do you _not_ have a butler?”

Clarke hesitates and then admits, “There is a butler.” He laughs, loud and open. She very much wants to have this conversation in the same room.

He seems to read her thoughts. “Do I not get to see what you look like?” He’s teasing, but she can tell he’s curious. He really _doesn’t_ know.

“You might turn to stone,” she warns, and he beams.

“I’ve always wanted to get Medusa’s side of the story,” he says. “Can I know your name, at least?”

“You already do, it’s Clarke.”

“Well, now I know it officially. I’m Bellamy.”

“That doesn’t sound like a real name,” she jokes. She’s suddenly very glad Wick isn’t here; he’d be teasing her mercilessly. She’s flirting with the man that tried to steal her book.

“That’s what _I_ said,” he says, serious, like he’s very put out by his mother’s choice in names.

“Well,” Clarke says, pulling a chair up to the mirror. “Bellamy, now that we know each other _officially_ , do you play chess?”

He doesn’t leave until three in the morning, and even then only because Clarke yawns mid-sentence. He laughs, and then softly says he’ll see her tomorrow, before slipping out into the night.

Lincoln is more than a little surprised, when he finds the dirt and weeds in the morning. Clarke can’t bring herself to care.

He doesn’t come back until after lunch, and her parents are just as surprised as she is. Anya just says he’s the disowned son of some nobleman from Connecticut, in explanation, and leaves it at that.

“He’s a blue blood,” Clarke says, when her mother tries to argue. She hadn’t known that, hadn’t thought this could go past anything more than some silly crush and maybe friendship, but now it feels like a real possibility. She’s giddy on the thought.

“You promised me weeds,” she says in place of hello, and he laughs, bright and beautiful. His hair is gelled back now, and he’s wearing a nicer jacket. She preferred him messy, but he’s still pretty. She doesn’t usually think of men as pretty, but he absolutely is.

“Well instead, I brought you coffee,” he says, waving a Styrofoam to-go cup at the mirror. He’s drinking from a second. She bites her lip for a moment, contemplating.

“Set the cup on the floor by the mirror,” she says, “Then turn around and close your eyes.”

He looks amused, but does it, and she slips in and out in seconds before telling him he can look, now. She smells the coffee before tasting it. There’s chocolate, and something spicy, like chili peppers. It’s the best coffee she’s ever had.

“Did you _make_ this?” she asks, gulping it down. He chuckles.

“Nah, my sister did. She owns a café—she’s a whiz at the espresso machine.” He sounds proud, and fond. It’s incredibly endearing.

“So, about that chess rematch,” she starts.

He comes back every day that week, bringing her a gift from the outside world with each visit. First, an envelope of developed pictures, taken from the city just a few miles from her home. Then, a handful of tourist keychains and bumper-stickers. Next, he walked in wearing a fanny pack, and a pair of sandals with very thick socks.

“This is a very common sight you’re missing out on,” he explained. “I didn’t want you to be left out.”

Lexa calls him a buffoon, on more than one occasion, but Clarke can tell he’s winning her over. Lincoln doesn’t even bother escorting him in or out, anymore, and Wick stopped mocking him after the fanny pack.

“He’s ingenious,” her cousin decided.

“Okay; taxes, jury duty, zoos,” Bellamy counts off on his fingers. It’s a game they’ve been playing—she’ll list three things she likes about her life as it is, and he’ll list three terrible things she doesn’t have to experience.

“I always liked zoos,” she muses. “Especially the aviaries.”

Bellamy scrunches his nose and she tries to not find it adorable, but it’s hard. He is _very_ adorable. “Why aviaries?”

“Their wings,” Clarke shrugs, even though he can’t see her, and he doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand why this is important. “Birds can go anywhere they want to.”

Bellamy hums a little, thoughtful. “Not penguins,” he points out, and Clarke laughs.

They talk incessantly--for hours, on either side of the mirror. About trivial things, like ancient history and baseball statistics; and heavier topics, like his mother's death just a few years ago, or Clarke's fear that she'll grow old and die having never experienced anything worthwhile. Each day, it's harder not to tell him, or simply walk out and let him see for himself. But she doesn't want him to run away, or look at her with pity, or scorn, or fear. She hears him laugh, sees him smile at the mirror, at where he thinks she is, and she wants so desperately for him to look at her like that.  _Really_ look at her.

At the end of each day, it's harder to let him go.

On the fifth day, he says, “So, I think I’ve figured it out.”

“What’s that?” Clarke murmurs. They’re playing Battleship, and he’s up by three. She’s trying to catch the reflection of his board in the vase behind him, but hasn’t figured out the angle.

“You’re covered in fur, aren’t you?” Clarke bursts out laughing, and he grins. “I’m talking, Disney’s _Beauty and the Beast_ , here. Either that, or you’re a guy.”

“Would that scare you off?” Clarke asks, worrying her lip. Truthfully, she’s been ready for him to see her since the third day.

“I mean, I’ve never tried dating a guy before,” Bellamy shrugs. “I’m definitely going to feel insecure if you’re bigger than me,” he admits, somberly. “I’m pretty vain.”

“What if I was covered in fur?” she hedges, going serious. He’s quiet long enough for her to feel nervous.

Finally, he says, “I mean, I’ve never tried that, either.” He pauses. “But as long as you’re not bigger than me…”

She doesn’t hit the button again. She’s already at the door.

He doesn’t realize she’s in the room until she clears her throat, and when he first sees her, he doesn’t jump or faint or scream. He stands, slowly, and walks over to her. He’s not as tall as she thought he was, but he still towers over her.

“Huh,” Bellamy says, reaching out to stroke her ear. It twitches under his hand, and he grins so wide she flushes. He takes in the wings with wide eyes. “Can you fly with those?”

Clarke flaps them a little and frowns. “No,” she admits. “They’re too small to carry me very far. But I can hover a little.”

“So,” he wonders, a little too casual for what she’s just shown him. “Genetic experiment, or fairy tale curse?”

“Fairy tale curse,” she says, glancing up at him. She’s flushing, she knows. His hand has dropped from her ear and trailed down to cup her neck. “Are you seriously not freaking out right now?”

He raises a brow. “Seriously not freaking out,” he confirms. “I was expecting way more fur coverage. I’m a little disappointed.”

She laughs, and she knows Lexa and Anya and _her parents_ are listening in, but she doesn’t care. “Want to marry me?” she asks, a little dizzy with joy. He’s _rubbing_ her neck, now, and it’s really hard to not just kiss him immediately.

“What, right now?” he smiles, and she huffs.

“The sooner we get married, the sooner I’m cured,” she says—really, how does he not _know_ this, yet? Usually, Anya briefs everyone beforehand.

Bellamy frowns a little, obviously confused. “Does that have anything to do with why you only agree to see blue bloods?”

“I don’t really care,” Clarke shrugs, “But the riddle says _someone of my kind_ , so. People of noble birth, or whatever,” she trails off, because his hand has dropped, and he’s still frowning. He looks absolutely _petrified_ , and a little pained. “Bellamy?”

“I can’t,” he says, voice strained, backing up towards the door. “I’m so sorry.”

And then he’s gone.

Clarke stares after him, and is still staring when the others find her. Lexa reaches her first, with Anya close behind, looking ready to kill.

“He was a fraud,” she spits, equally angry with him for conning her, and with herself for falling for it. “Fed me a forged birth certificate, and fake backstory.”

“Okay,” Clarke says. Her twenty-second birthday is in two weeks. She’d thought… “Okay,” she repeats, and lets Lexa hold her when she crumples.

She runs away that night.

She knows they’ll think it’s because of Bellamy, and it is, but not because he broke her heart, or anything. He might have, she isn’t sure; she’d only known him for five days, after all. But five days, after seven years of _nothing_ —five days is a veritable lifetime.

She doesn’t leave because she’s nursing a broken heart. She leaves because all the cheap nickel keychains, and the spicy coffee, and the blurry snapshots developed at Walmart, left her craving the world she left behind at seven. A lot has changed since she was a child, and she wants to see it, _actually_ see it, and smell it, and hear it.

So she packs a bag, and puts on a long jacket over a bulky sweater, and her favorite knit hat, and crawls out the window just like Bellamy.

She steals her mother’s credit card, and feels a little bad about it, but it’s not like she has a job, or anything. She’s never _needed_ money, before.

Clarke doesn’t remember very many details from when her outings as a girl, but Main Street seems like a good place to start.

There isn’t much she recognizes; everything seems very new, and bright, and colorful. It’s almost overwhelming, but it’s exhilarating, too, and she wants to try every food she sees, and walk through every shop she passes. She’s seen these things in books, and films, and the internet when Abby finally let her have a computer, but it’s different, experiencing it all in person.

She finds a small but clean hotel for the first night, and steps back outside early the next morning. She’s not sure how long she’ll wander around the city, before striking onto somewhere new, but she’s not about to waste any time.

She’s just turned down a small alley when she smells something she _does_ recognize—the spicy coffee Bellamy brought her. She follows the scent to a small coffee shop off to the side of a large, old building. It’s called Grounders, and it’s definitely the most low key shop she’s been in, so far.

There’s a pretty brunette at the register, leaning on the glass countertop and in a heated discussion with a customer. Clarke steps up, and tries not to fidget with the lapels of her coat.

The brunette blinks clear blue eyes at her. “What can I get ya?”

Clarke blinks back, and glances up at the chalkboard menu above them. She doesn’t see anything labeled SPICY CHOCOLATE COFFEE, so she decides to just ask. “Um, a—friend—brought me some coffee from here? It’s spicy, but with chocolate too?”

The girl brightens, and Clarke notices she’s wearing a nametag pinned to a dark tank top with holes in the straps. It just says O, which. That can’t be a real name, right? “That’s our specialty brew,” the girl says, and taps a few buttons on the register. It’s the old kind, with a keyboard. “Anything else?”

On a whim, Clarke buys a slice of red velvet cake. She’s seen it in magazines before, but never actually tried any. She pays with her mother’s card, and picks a small round table in the corner of the shop. She’s bought more post cards than she probably should have, and starts filling them all out, before realizing she doesn’t actually know any addresses. She doesn’t even know _her own_ address, which seems stupid. She’s never had to know.

She’s startled when O sets her cake and coffee down on the table. She looks down at Clarke, amused. “You know you can take that heavy coat off, right? Are you seriously cold right now?”

Honestly, Clarke’s feeling a little stifled, and she’s definitely sweating, but the coat is what’s keeping her wings hidden. With it on, they just look like a small bulge, like maybe a hood or something. “I’m fine,” she says, and O shrugs before returning to the counter.

She’s in the middle of a post card to Wick, with a half-naked woman riding a pony on the front, when a woman bursts into the café. She’s walking with a severe limp, and a cane made out of a sword’s sheath, which is kind of badass. She marches straight up the counter, shouting “Blake Junior! I have news!”

O comes out from the back, doing whatever it is baristas do, looking unimpressed. “What have I told you about calling me that?” she snaps.

The woman ignores her, and slaps a newspaper down on the counter with a grin. “You know the Griffin’s, up on the hill?” she asks, waggling her eyebrows. Clarke freezes in her seat, trying hard not to stare too noticeably.

“Not personally,” O says, reaching for the paper. “ _Everyone_ knows the Griffin’s, Raven.”

“Well, their daughter’s gone missing,” Raven says, and Clarke falls out of her chair, because she is _the_ least smooth person on the planet.

The girls glance over at her in tandem, and then back to the newspaper. Then back at her, and she knows she’s caught.

“Hi,” she says weakly, picking herself up.

Raven speaks first. “Wow. I’ve _never_ solved a case this fast.” She looks rather pleased with herself.

“Are you okay?” O asks, but she isn’t talking about the fall. She looks alarmingly intense, like she’s ready for battle. She reminds Clarke of Anya, a little. “Do you need to call someone? Did they hurt you?” She turns to Raven, hissing, “It’s _always_ the rich ones that do the weird shit!”

“No!” Clarke says, a little louder than necessary. “No, that’s—they’re fine, they were fine. I just, uh. I wanted to see what it was like, outside.”

“You’ve never been _outside_?” O asks, incredulous, and Clarke shrugs awkwardly. She’s still not used to explaining it, and the girls clearly don’t know about the curse.

“It’s complicated,” she sighs, and Raven limps over, scrutinizing her.

“Raven Reyes,” she says, shooting her hand out. “Private Investigator. Someone hired me to find you,” she adds, smirking a little. Clarke tries not to seem too panicked, but obviously fails. “Don’t worry,” Raven soothes. “I won’t tell them, if you don’t want me to. Besides, I’m getting paid by the hour, and they’re rich. They can afford it.”

“Where are you staying?” O asks, setting down a coffee refill on the table. “On the house,” she adds.

“Uh, the Ark Hotel?”

O blanches. “That place charges, like, three hundred dollars a night! No way, you’re staying at my place. I’ve got a guest bed.”

Raven eyes her skeptically. “You’ve got a pull out with less spring than an old man hopped up on Viagra,” she says. “And I thought Blake Senior was living in it.”

O scowls. “It’s still a bed, and it’s _free_. And Bell left yesterday—he’s going back to school, to find himself or something.”

“Ah, I see what’s happening here,” Raven says. “Mama Bird doesn’t know what to do with an empty nest.”

O’s scowl deepens, and Clarke interrupts before she plays witness to murder. “I’ll take the bed, if it’s still available.”

“Of course it is,” O sniffs, walking back around the counter, while Raven flops down in the chair across from Clarke. She takes a sip of the second coffee.

“So, what’s your story?” she asks, flicking the paper over to her. Clarke glances down to see herself on the front page. The photo is an old one, from when she was fifteen, with that awkward hairstyle. They’ve cropped it, so her ears don’t show.

It’s clearly her, though. There’s no hiding that. She shifts, suddenly self-conscious. No one’s ever asked her about her life—they’ve always either known, or not been interested. And there’s no way for her to say much of anything without mentioning the curse, which. She’s fairly sure the whole _cursed by an ancient witch_ thing shouldn’t be divulged during a first meeting.

“There’s not much to tell,” Clarke shrugs. “I was born and raised in a mansion, and I ran away two nights ago, to see the world.”

Raven looks decidedly unconvinced. “Griffin,” she says, surprisingly gruff, “I may have born at night, but it wasn’t _last_ night. Something made them hide you _Secret Garden_ style, and something made you leave. Now, you don’t want to tell me all your dirty laundry—I get it. But, fair warning; I am a bullshit bloodhound,” she leans forward, punctuating her words with a harsh poke at the table. Clark slides back in her chair. “If there’s bullshit two blocks away, or two hundred blocks away, I sniff it out. Capuche?”

“Raven!” O shouts from the counter, where she’s stacking brownies on a tray. She scowls over at her friend. “Stop intimidating her!”

“I’m not intimidating her!” Raven calls back, and then glances at Clarke, still a little slumped in her chair. “Am I intimidating you?” Clarke shrugs noncommittally.

O declares the shop is closed at sunset, and unceremoniously dumps all the day’s leftover pastries into three large to-go boxes, before ushering them all out. “I’ve got places to be, people!” she crows.

“What, like your bed?” Raven scoffs, stretching out her braced leg.

O nods decisively. “Exactly like my bed. C’mon, Clarke.”

O lives in a relatively small apartment in a decent neighborhood, with one bedroom, and a tiny bathroom with no sink. “You’ll have to brush your teeth in the kitchen,” she says with a shrug, and then waves her to the couch bed without another word, disappearing to her room.

The pull-out is a little less terrible than Raven had led her to believe, and anyway it’s free, and Clarke slips into sleep easily. She wakes easily too, bright and early so O can open up the shop, but when she goes to pay for her coffee, the card is declined.

“My mother cut me off,” Clarke says, shocked. She should have expected it, really; her parents probably thought it would make her return home, or at least call to be picked up. It’s a clever tactic, to be honest.

“Bummer,” O chirps. “Want a job?”

It probably shouldn’t be this easy, Clarke thinks, slipping the apron on over her jacket. She slept in it too, just in case. But it’s hard work, constantly traveling between the register and the espresso machine, never having a moment to pause or sit down. She’s sweating pretty obviously, and it feels gross, and she’s not sure how much longer she’ll be able to keep all the layers on.

“What, is it like a weird back thing?” O asks on their lunch break. It’s unofficial, so they just sneak bites of tuna salad behind the counter and hope no one comes in.

“Yeah,” Clarke nods, readjusting her hat. Her scalp is getting sweaty too, and her ears feel too restrained. “ _Weird_ back thing.” O makes a sympathetic face, but drops it.

Raven doesn’t.

“I’m a P.I. for a reason,” she declares when O yells at her to stop.

“You’re a brat,” O says, and throws a towel at her.

“I’m just not really comfortable talking about it,” Clarke says, quiet but firm. She’s decided that Raven’s more bark than bite, after all.

“Fine,” Raven makes a big show of limping back to her table, where she’s sifting through manila folders and official looking papers.

“She acts like some big truth archeologist or something,” O says, shaking her head. “But mostly she just does adultery gigs.”

“I can hear you,” Raven calls, even though Clarke’s pretty sure that’s a bluff. If she _had_ heard O, she’d have disagreed more vehemently.

“What kind of adultery gigs?” Clarke asked, intrigued despite herself. She’s still pretty much enamored with everything the world has to offer—though she did wish the shop had air conditioning.

“Wanna find out?” Raven asks, grinning meanly, and Clarke looks to O in question. O just gives a shrug.

“I’m paying you in coffee and a couch-bed,” she says. “You can take half a day off.”

Which is how Clarke finds herself squatting in the bushes while Raven takes some pictures through the window of a nice-looking house.

“What are we _doing_ ,” Clarke hisses, and Raven shushes her with a hand.

“Catching Cage-Dickbag-Wallace in the fucking act,” she snaps, and then pauses. “Heh, the _fucking_ act. Get it?”

Clarke makes a face and stares up at the house in disgust. “ _Cage Wallace_ lives here?”

Raven eyes her, suspiciously. “You don’t know what an uber is, but you know the biggest asshole in the tristate area?”

Clarke shrugs. “Our parents are friends,” she admits. “My mom was going to make me marry him in two weeks.”

Raven stares at her, a little too serious, since they’re still squatting in someone’s bushes. Finally, she says “I’m using that money to buy you an apartment.”

Clarke laughs. “But it’s your money,” she points out. “You did all the work, finding me.”

“It wasn’t really that much work,” Raven shrugs. “But, fine. I’ll use it to buy myself a bigger apartment, and you can live there too.”

“I wasn’t really expecting real life to be this simple,” Clarke admits, and Raven snorts.

“Your mom was forcing you into _an arranged marriage_ , and raised you in a super secret mansion in the woods—literally _anything_ seems simple, compared to that.”

Clarke nods. “Well, when you put it like that…”

She follows Raven back to her office, because she has a darkroom in the back where she develops all her incriminating photos. There are a few of O, too, and some of a dark haired man with freckles that she recognizes.

She can’t stop herself from reaching out to touch the film, tracing over the angles of his face and curls. He’s frowning in most of the photos, except one, where he’s smiling at something behind the camera.

“That’s Bellamy,” Raven says, nonchalant. “O’s brother. Apparently he’s at school, becoming a professional nerd.”

“Why did he leave?” Clarke asks, mouth dry. Raven doesn’t seem to notice.

“Beats me,” she shrugs. “He said something about _becoming good enough_ , but who knows what _that_ means.”

Clarke drops her hand from the picture. She knows it’s silly, to think he’d meant _becoming good enough for_ her, but. She can’t really help it. “I met him,” she says, because not telling them feels sort of like lying. “He tried to steal one of my books.”

Raven snorts. “ _Nerd_ ,” she scoffs, but when Clarke turns, she’s eyeing her carefully.

“Apparently our runaway princess knows your brother,” Raven announces when they get back to the café. O looks up, surprised.

“Bell?” she asks, and Clarke nods, feeling awkward. “ _How?_ ”

“I didn’t really _know_ him,” Clarke admits. “I caught him breaking in, one night, and he started visiting.”

“ _You’re_ why he needed the suit?” O gapes.

“He tried to _steal a book_ ,” Raven says, shaking her head. “Your brother’s weird, dude.”

Clarke picks at her jacket, uncertain. She’s been feeling lightheaded all day, and warmer than usual. She knows she should probably take off some layers and cool down, but she doesn’t want to risk it.

Then the door slams open, and Wick marches in. “ _Aha_ ,” he crows, triumphant. “I knew it!”

“I told you to meet me at my office,” Raven snaps, irritated, while O and Clarke just stare.

“How’d you find me?” Clarke asks, weak, and Wick frowns a little.

“Your mom’s credit receipts,” he says, like it’s obvious, which. It kind of is. “You promised to send me a post card,” he accuses.

“I—” Clarke collapses before she can finish.

When she wakes up, she’s on O’s sofa, and she’s not wearing her jacket or hat. Clarke clutches the old afghan to her, reflexively, but it’s too late. Whoever put her here saw her wings and tail and ears. She’s hoping Wick worked alone, but she knows the girls probably helped—Wick isn’t very physical.

“It’s about damned time,” Raven grouses from the easy chair. She has her bum leg propped up on the full ottoman, and is glaring in Clarke’s general direction. “You freaked us the fuck out,” she declares.

“Sorry,” Clarke says, still holding the blanket up to her neck, though it’s a moot point by now; at this angle, Raven can clearly see her wings. And ears. To her credit, she isn’t staring, though she probably did while Clarke was asleep. “What happened?”

“Heat stroke,” O explains, marching in. She tosses a wet washcloth at Clarke, looking only slightly less pissed off than Raven. “ _Jesus_ , Clarke—keeping that winter shit on nearly killed you! In _my_ coffee shop—do you know how bad for business that would be?” she demands, and Wick comes in, laying a calming hand on O’s shoulder.

“Also, we were worried about you,” he adds, nudging Raven’s good leg with his foot. “Right, Reyes?”

“This is your fault, asshole,” Raven snaps, but glances at Clarke a little softer. “But yeah, we were worried. You were being an idiot.”

“I wasn’t,” Clarke frowns. She does feel a little bad about almost dying in the café, but it’s not like keeping her curse hidden was unreasonable. “I don’t have the best track record with being accepted,” she explains, and even O deflates a little.

“Anyone who didn’t think you look fucking _awesome_ is weak, and not worth any of your time,” Raven declares.

Wick glances down at her, fond. “I knew you were a softy,” he coos, and Raven hits him with her cane.

“Are you guys,” Clarke huffs, and her wings flutter, now that they can stretch. O gasps a little. “Are you really— _okay_ with this?”

Raven shrugs. “I mean, it’s not like it’s your fault,” she points out, and O nods.

“Yeah. What happened, anyway?”

“Our great-great-great-great grandmother pissed off a witch,” Wick says.

“To be fair, we don’t actually know _what_ happened,” Clarke argues. “Just that the next Griffin daughter would be cursed.”

“Oh shit, I remember hearing about that!” Raven says, delighted. She nearly falls out of the chair in her excitement, and Wick has to steady her. “There was a girl before you, but she turned out to be the wife’s lovechild!”

“My sister, yeah,” Wick says, dry, and Raven has the decency to blush.

“Why aren’t my parents with you?” Clarke asks, suddenly remembering. If Wick found her because of her mother’s credit card, Abby and Jake must know where she is.

“I convinced them to let me handle it,” he shrugs, and then pauses. “Well, I convinced Uncle Jake.”

“For how long?” Clarke asks, wryly. If Abby knows, it’s only a matter of time. In any case, Anya will march down here herself, with a long line of eligible spouses trailing behind her like ducklings.

“As long as it takes for Lincoln and Lexa to get fed up with waiting, and just march down here themselves,” Wick shrugs, and then turns to Raven. “You told me you had no leads,” he accuses, and Raven glares back at him.

“You deserved it,” she snaps. “You were gonna let her marry Cage-ass hat-Wallace.”

Wick blanches a little. “I was _not_!” He turns to Clarke with a frown. “Tell her I wasn’t going to.”

“He wasn’t going to,” Clarke says dutifully. “He would have snuck me through the laundry chute, or something.”

“Damn right I would have,” he declares.

“Uh, guys, we have a bigger problem,” O calls from the front door. She’s picking up the paper, from where it was dropped on the mat. Wick reaches her first and takes it, reading the first page with a frown before tossing it to Clarke.

Most of the page is taken up by a blurry photograph of the inside of Grounders, taken from just outside the huge bay window. There’s a fuzzy body laying on the ground, and it’s clearly her because her wings are visible, and the blonde of her curls. The headline reads GRIFFIN GIRL NOT DEAD AFTERALL? and she knows that somewhere, Abby is having a stroke.

“Holy shit,” Raven breathes, reading over Clarke’s shoulder. “Dude, you’re famous.”

“Not really,” Clarke argues, but with no real heat. She’s still a little dazed from it all.

“Who the _fuck_ —” O snarls. “They have _no right_ —and in _my shop!_ They, I, _oh_ —” the stuttered threats go on for a while, but the rest of them just sort of tune her out.

“Who even reads the newspaper anymore, really?” Wick asks, clearly trying for comfort.

“Bell signed us up because he was worried I wasn’t keeping up with current affairs,” O admits.

“Joke’s on him,” Raven chirps. “TMZ has a website, now.” She and O high five.

Clarke finishes the entire article—mostly it’s a lot of rumors and phoned-in sightings of her around the city, though she suspects most of them are fake—but at the end, it says in bold letters **$3000.00 reward for clear photo of the Griffin Girl**.

Raven whistles when Clarke reads it out loud. “Do you know how many espressos that’ll buy?”

“I could afford a hotel,” Clarke offers, but O and Raven both shoo the suggestion away.

“You’re welcome as long as you’d like,” O assures her.

“Yeah, and if she ever gets sick of you, you can come crash with me,” Raven shrugs. Wick eyes her suspiciously.

“I knew you were a softie,” he decides. “You don’t have to act like such a hard ass all the time.”

“I am a hard ass,” Raven shrugs, fishing out her camera.

“It’s a rewards photo,” Wick says, dry. “Not an advertisement for L’Oreal.”

“But with your curls, it totally could be,” O adds from the couch. She’s messing around on her phone, texting someone and not even looking at the mini photoshoot Raven and Clarke have set up across the room.

“Only one person in this room actually takes pictures for a living,” Raven snaps, “So kindly pipe the fuck down.” She takes a few more shots of Clarke at different angles, making sure to get her ears and wings in every shot, at one point having her drape her tail over one shoulder so that shows, too. “There,” she sighs, setting her camera down and giving Clarke a grin. “Ready to be rich, Griffin?” She pauses, and then corrects herself. “Rich on your own?”

“Three thousand dollars isn’t actually that much,” Wick points out, and Raven smacks him with her cane. “Stop _doing_ that,” he grouses, rubbing at his thigh, and turns to his cousin for support.

Clarke sighs, tugging on her jacket. “Raven, don’t hit Wick,” she placates. “Wick, don’t underestimate Raven’s badassery.” She pulls her hat carefully over her ears, and ushers them all out the door. Wick grumbles the whole way to the Walgreens, where they get the pictures developed, and then all the way to the post office.

“Reyes told me about Bellamy,” Wick says, abruptly. He’s playing with one of the pens chained to the forms desk, beside her. “You wanna talk about it?”

Clarke fidgets with her hat. She and Wick don’t really have _serious_ conversations. That had been Wells’ role, before he left, and then it was Lexa’s. Wick usually just shows up when he feels like it, with snacks and enough jokes to take her mind off of everything about her life. “Not really,” she sighs. She doesn’t want to talk _about_ Bellamy—she wants to talk _to_ him; sit him down and ask him why he left, and if he was coming back, and what might happen with them if he did.

“Fair enough,” Wick shrugs, and nudges her in the shoulder. “But if you do, I’ve been told I’m a _really_ good listener.”

“By who?” Clarke scoffs. “Clearly, they’re a liar.”

“You’re just jealous of my superior friendship skills,” Wick says, mild. “All of your best friends are plants.”

“Plants don’t lie,” she points out, addressing her envelope. Wick catches her wrist before she slides it in the box.

“There’s no going back,” he warns, and Clarke gently takes her hand back.

“Good,” she says, and tosses it in.

“You’re not _that_ famous,” Wick argues around a bite of the giant cinnamon roll they’re splitting at Grounders. Most of it’s already been eaten, by him, while Clarke mainly just stares back at herself, on the front cover.

The picture was printed the day after she’d mailed it, and it’s still a little unnerving, whenever they pass by a magazine vendor and she sees dozens of copies of her face.

“You’re like that old lady that picked up a car,” he muses, “Or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mistress. You’ll fade away within, like, two weeks.”

He’s wrong, of course, and just a few days later, they show up to find the coffee shop filled with strangers, wall to wall. Raven catches sight of them just inside the doorway, and slips out to lead them around the back and in through the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” Wick demands, and Raven slaps the day’s paper against his chest. The headline reads GRIFFIN GIRL’S FAVORITE GROUNDS, with a picture of the coffee shop. Clarke and Wick make identical noises of understanding.

“Points for alliteration,” Wick chirps.

Raven waves to O through the kitchen door’s window, and the barista marches in with a glare. “I cannot _believe_ this is happening,” she grouses. Octavia likes to describe her café as the obscure _Friends_ kind of coffee shop, so the sudden drastic boom in business is clearly not appreciated.

“Sorry,” Clarke says weakly. She’d wanted to experience the nuances of the regular, outside world, and instead she’s taking over her friends’ lives.

“It’s not _your_ fault,” O scoffs, like it’s obvious. “I had to hire a newbie, and I _never_ hire people.”

“You hired me,” Clarke points out, and Octavia huffs, collapsing in one of the lawn chairs she keeps back there for unofficial lunch breaks.

“I paid you in free coffee and a crappy pullout,” she argues. “Monroe wants actual money, the nerve. And that article! You know they didn’t use a _single_ picture of me? They barely even mentioned my name— _Miss Blake_. Do you know how many _Miss Blake_ ’s there are? A fucking _lot_. _Miss Blake_ could mean anyone.”

“I thought you wanted to be unknown and abstract,” Clarke teases. O rolls her eyes.

“I want _my shop_ to be unknown and abstract,” she clarifies. “I want _my face_ to be worshiped and hung up in thirteen year olds’ lockers. I know what I’m about, Clarke.”

“Clearly,” Wick agrees, and glances through the window. “No coffee for us then, I suppose.” They all follow his gaze and watch Monroe, clearly frazzled, running back and forth between the register and espresso machine.

“I should probably go help her,” Octavia sighs heavily.

“Probably,” Raven agrees, patting O’s hair a little. Octavia heaves another groan before slipping back into the fray.

“Booze?” Wick suggests, folding the paper under his arm.

“Booze,” Raven confirms, and Clarke only mopes a little as she follows them.

Clarke got drunk once, when she was sixteen, right after Wells told her he was dating Harper. A few hours later, Wick showed up in her room with a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and a bottle of raspberry Smirnoff, and they played _Never Have I Ever_ , which is pretty much impossible to play with just two people. Clarke won of course, because she could just throw out things like _never have I ever left home alone_ , or _driven a car_.

But alcohol has never really been Clarke’s thing, and she hasn’t been drunk since that night, so her tolerance is pretty much shot.

“I don’t know about this,” she’s saying, a little too loudly, while Raven and Wick watch, amused. She’s not really sure how they got there—but she’s clutching a half-empty bottle and waving it around as she speaks. She vaguely remembers Raven introducing them to the bartender—Murphy, who’s apparently an asshole—but not much else.

“Don’t know about what?” Raven asks, nursing her own beer. Clarke’s pretty sure she’s on her third, but isn’t positive. Her counting skills appear to be off.

“ _This_ ,” she repeats, a little more emphatically.

“That clears it up,” Wick grins.

“Being me,” Clarke decides. “Being famous. But mostly me. I mean—I have _ears_ , guys.”

“So do we,” Raven shrugs, and Clarke frowns at her, nudging her arm with her bottle.

“Mine are different,” she huffs. “And I have wings, and a _tail_ —” She flexes it pointedly, letting it drift down from under her skirt. She’s had it bound up and hidden all day, and it feels nice to stretch it out.

“Uh,” Raven says, staring. She’s not the only one.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Murphy splutters, and Clarke hears a glass break.

“Don’t be a prude,” Clarke scoffs. The jukebox starts playing Hootie and the Blowfish. “I _love_ this song,” she declares, and climbs up on the bar, only wobbling a little.

“Wow, I _definitely_ should have snuck you out more,” Wick decides, reaching out to steady her as she tries to do a spin.

The next thing she knows, she’s waking up, tucked in a bed she doesn’t recognize. She rolls over to see a mass of what looks like the guts of a car, spewed out all over half of the bedroom.

 _Ah_ , so it’s Raven’s.

Clarke sits up and the hangover crashes into her. She’s been hungover before, too, but never like _this_. With a good deal of horror, she suddenly remembers taking her hat off at the bar, and Raven demanding to feel her ears. Then Murphy wanted to, and then complete strangers—nearly everyone in the bar. Clarke’s pretty sure Raven started charging money at some point, five bucks a pop, while Wick just bought everyone more rounds.

She took off her jacket, too, and let people touch her wings. She’d even tried to show off a little, jumping off the bar and hovering a few feet before landing. People had _clapped_ for her, and taken pictures with her, and asked them to sign their beer-stained napkins.

No one had run, or screamed, or called her a monster.

“There’s the lady of the hour,” Wick cheers when she slips into the living room. He’s freshly showered, it looks like, with a new t-shirt wet from his hair. He’s wearing just boxers, which she thinks might mean he and Raven had sex, but she’s not sure. Her head hurts, and her mouth tastes like dirt, and she’s pretty much unbearably starving.

“You got me drunk,” she accuses, and Wick barks a laugh that’s entirely too loud for the morning.

“Believe me, I _wish_ I could take credit for how awesomely _trashed_ you got last night,” he says, pleased. “But alas, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

“You bought the alcohol,” Clarke argues. “You bought a _lot_ of alcohol.”

“He’s unnecessarily rich,” Raven chirps, limping in from some other corner of the apartment. She’s wearing a tank top and underwear, but no pants, and settles curled up in Wick’s lap. Clarke’s now 75% sure they had sex. “He can afford it.”

“If someone doesn’t get alcohol poisoning, I haven’t gotten my money’s worth,” Wick agrees sagely, and they high five.

“You’re viral now,” Raven says, sliding her phone over to Clarke. There are dozens of Instagram photos of her with strangers from the bar, making faces at the camera and giving peace signs and laughing. Each one has a hundred more comments, calling her _awesome_ and _inspiring_ and _beautiful._

They’re calling her _beautiful_. It’s a lot to take in.

Someone tweeted _Just met the griffin girl!! She ROCKS!!! #cursedcutie #looksarenteverything #wishicouldfly_

It goes on like that for a while, and Clarke scrolls for what seems like hours before finally feeling too dazed to think, and she hands it back.

“You should write a self-help book,” Wick decides. “A tell-all autobiography. I’ll be your manager, and we’ll tour around the country in one of those limo hummers, like Lady Gaga.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Clarke promises.

They head to Grounders. Clarke wears her favorite dress—a blue checkered pattern that Anya always complained looked like a tablecloth—and no hat or jacket. She leaves her tail unbound, and her wings loose, and her ears twitching in the fresh air. She smiles at everyone they pass on the way, smiles wider when they stop and stare, and she agrees to every picture and autograph they ask for.

“I’m friends with a celebrity!” O crows when they walk inside. She’s hung up a giant sign in the window, reading IF U ARE HERE FOR GRIFFIN GIRL, GET OUT!!! SHE’S A PERSON NOT A ZOO ANIMAL!!! and the place is considerably more empty than it was the day before. O comes out from behind the counter to hug Clarke tightly. “I’m so proud of you,” she mumbles into her hair, before pulling back. “But since you’re now rich again, I’m charging you full-price.”

The bell above the door rings, and they all turn to look, reflexively. Clarke and Wick freeze, caught in a particularly impressive stare down with Lincoln and Lexa, respectively.

“Your birthday,” Lexa starts, “Is in _two days_.” Clarke wilts a little under her governess’s disapproval, while Wick tries very hard not to shrink away from the strong wave of Lincoln’s disappointment. Their combined effects are, as usual, daunting.

“Who the hell are you?” Raven snaps, and Lexa ignores her, which is probably the most insulting way to react to her.

“Oh God, what happens on your birthday?” O asks, looking sick. “Please say it’s not like _Beauty and the Beast,_ and you die or something.”

Clarke laughs a little and shakes her head. “My mother just thinks it’s a good deadline for marriage,” she assures her. “If I die, it won’t have anything to do with the curse. Probably. Honestly, we don’t know all that much about it.”

“Do _not_ marry Cage Wallace,” Raven demands hotly. “Cage _fucking_ Wallace—you cannot marry him.”

“I won’t,” Clarke promises, with a grimace. She turns to Lexa. “Tell my mother that—”

“You’re not marrying the Wallace boy,” Lexa says, nonchalant. “There’s a new groom. He volunteered yesterday.”

Because Clarke is, at her core, exceedingly _hopeless_ , her first thought is _it’s Bellamy_.

But instead, she finds Finn Collins waiting for her at the mansion.

“Finn?” she asks, confused. “I thought you had a girlfriend?”

Finn smiles a little, awkward but still charming. “We broke up,” he admits. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He means it to sound romantic, she’s sure, but Clarke only feels guilty and a little sorry about the girl he’s left behind.

And the fact that he’s only showed up now that she’s on every magazine in the country, doesn’t sit well with her.

They have lunch together, and chat a little, but the easy openness of that first meeting is gone. They’re both too reserved to feel comfortable, and when he leaves, it’s with a brief kiss to her cheek.

“I thought you liked him,” Abby frowns when Clarke tells her that evening.

Specifically, she tells her that she’s not getting married the day before her birthday, and also she’s moving out. She hasn’t decided yet if she’s going to take up Raven’s offer, or stick with O and her pullout, but Clarke has enough money from the reward saved up, and she can get another job if she has to. She has her whole life to figure it out.

She has a whole life, now. She has friends—ones that aren’t related to her, or paid by her parents—and she has people looking up to her, calling her _inspiring_ and _beautiful_. She has fifteen years’ worth of learning stored in her head. She has talents. She’s not without options.

“I did,” Clarke shrugs, not sure how to explain so that her mother _gets_ it. Abby’s frown deepens.

“Clarke,” she says, clearly struggling for patience. She does _want_ to understand. “We have to find someone soon. Of course I want you to marry for love, sweetheart—all I want is for you to find someone who will love you—”

“I do,” Clarke says, firm and for the first time. Abby just stares, a little confused, so she keeps going. “I love me. I like myself the way I am,” and she’s surprised to find it’s true.

All at once, Clarke feels her skin begin to burn, soft and mild, like when she soaks in too much sunlight. And then her mother gasps, and nearly falls out of her chair, and Clarke tries to find what Abby’s staring at.

She checks over both shoulders twice before she realizes her wings are gone. Then she feels around her skirt, and finds nothing but air where her tail should have been. Her hands are shaking when they card through her hair, to feel two regular human ears on the side of her head.

“All this time,” Abby whispers, and Clarke realizes her mother’s _crying_. “All this time, and all I had to do was accept you,” Abby gives a small sob, and so Clarke holds her and rocks her a little, still feeling fairly unreal.

It can’t be this easy—it shouldn’t be. But she stares at herself in the mirror over Abby’s shoulders, and she looks so perfectly ordinary that it hurts.

O screams when Clarke walks into her apartment. Then she hugs Clarke so tightly they nearly topple over, and then she calls Raven and Wick over to celebrate, which quickly gets out of hand.

Clarke doesn’t recognize most of the people at the party, but they all stop her at some point in the night, congratulating her and snapping pictures and offering her another beer. O usually swoops in at that point, to firmly toss out any unsealed bottles or open-mouthed cups. Even when she’s drunk and unsteady, she gives a particularly vicious lecture to some college guy about the dangers of suspicious alcohol to young women. By the end, he looks appropriately chastened, and has officially signed up for the next semester’s Women’s Studies class, via phone.

By the end of the night, the apartment has grown so crowded and stifling, that Clarke finds herself crawling out onto the fire escape. It leads up to the roof, so she climbs, a little wobbly, because she’s had four blackberry beers someone brought. They were so sweet she didn’t notice the alcohol until it was too late, and now she’s drunk enough that the world feels kind of liquidated.

She’s not sure how long she sits on the roof, staring out over the city, before he sits down beside her.

He’s exactly as she remembers—maybe a little more tired. His hair is longer, too. But his eyes are the same, and his freckles, and his arms—and those are the important bits.

Bellamy doesn’t look at her, but he can clearly feel her staring, and he smirks. “Walking out on your own party? Rude.”

“What are you doing here?” she blurts, because it’s not that she doesn’t want to see him— _God_ , does she want to see him—but she’s not really prepared. She’s not used to this new body, yet, and she’d sort of wanted to have herself together by the time he showed back up.

Bellamy fidgets a little, suddenly nervous and uncertain. “O called me,” he admits. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—if you don’t want me here, I can—”

“I want you,” Clarke interrupts. She _meant_ to say _I want you_ here, but she didn’t, and now she’s stuck.

He gives her a small grin, looking shy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His neck is red. It’s pretty great. She wonders what he would do if she reached out to brush the curls out of his eyes, or trace the freckles down his cheek.

He seems to read her thoughts, because suddenly his hand is warm and steady on the side of her face. His fingers twist through her hair, smooth and gentle, where her ears should have been but aren’t anymore.

Before she can think too much about it, Clarke turns into his touch. She presses a kiss to the inside of his wrist, and Bellamy groans.

“Why did you leave?”

He drops his hand a little, but it stays curled around the slope of her neck and shoulder. He runs the other through his hair, nervous, and glances out over the city. “I thought,” he huffs a little, clearly annoyed. “I know it’s stupid, but I thought maybe there was a loophole, you know? I thought maybe if I made enough money, as much as a blue blood, it would work. Or maybe if I was related to some distant Datu—Filipino nobility—I don’t know.” Now he looks at her, soft and certain. “I wanted you.”

Clarke licks her lips, doubts all forgotten. “Wanted?” she echoes, and his hand twitches on her skin. She shudders at the feel.

“Want,” Bellamy whispers. His eyes are half-closed, and he’s been steadily leaning closer, so there’s less than an inch between their mouths. She can feel his exhales on her cheek. “I should’ve known you’d save yourself,” he grins, affectionate, and she winds her hands through his hair so he purrs.

“I was going to offer to marry you anyway,” he mumbles, so soft she almost doesn’t hear. “I found a ring and everything. I was saving up for it.”

Clarke grins and tugs at the hair at the nape of his neck, overwhelmed by a rush of fondness for the boy in her hands. “Why don’t we start with dinner,” she says, and then kisses him.

Clarke has kissed a fair amount of people. She’s kissed inexperienced and veteran kissers, and she’s learned a few things along the way. Like how to scrape her nails against their scalp until they groan from it, which is what she does to Bellamy now.

He pulls back and she mouths at his jaw, and neck, and shoulder. He pulls her into his lap so she has a better angle, and she grinds down on him, fast and dirty, completely unreserved.

“Fuck,” he hisses, pressing his face in her hair. He’s got her by the hips now, evening the rhythm so their moans are in sync. He pulls back so she can see his face, wrecked and impossibly earnest. “I don’t want you to think this is just because you look human, now,” he says, voice rough and strained. “I wanted you before. I wanted you when you were just that fucking disembodied voice, beating me at chess.”

“You shouldn’t be able to talk this much,” Clarke mumbles against his skin, biting another bruise beneath his ear. He’ll have a ring of them in the morning, proof that she was there. That he was hers, if just for tonight.

 _God_ , she hopes they get more nights. She wants so much more than just this.

But she wants this too, and so she grinds a little faster, a little harder, until he’s keening into the skin of her neck and thrusting up, wild and uneven. She’s not sure when he comes apart, but when she finally lets go, she pretty much collapses against him, while he presses weak little kisses to her temple, murmuring things like _so good_ , and _everything_.

“Did we seriously just get off from _grinding_?” Bellamy laughs, breath still a little shaky, and Clarke grins into his shoulder.

“I didn’t hear you complaining at the time,” she teases, pulling back so she can kiss him properly. “You should take me home,” she mumbles into his mouth, and he bites her lip and smiles.

“Why’s that?” he asks. His hair’s a mess from her hands, and his shirt’s all rucked up, and his mouth is swollen, and he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

“Because I don’t really feel like losing my virginity on this roof,” she says, mild, and he chokes so hard she has to crawl off him.

“It’s nothing special,” he warns, stern-faced and nervous, like he actually thinks she’s going to leave if she sees dirty dishes in the sink. Like he thinks she isn’t completely, stupidly into him already.

Clarke squeezes his hand as he unlocks the door, and then kisses his knuckles, before sliding it into her pants—she’s wearing pants, now. It’s great, and they don’t even have any holes in them.

Bellamy drops his keys twice before he gets the door open, and then makes it two steps before shoving her up against the wall and grinding his palm between her thighs until she screams.

“Good?” he hedges, righting her shirt where he dragged down the collar with his fucking teeth. Clarke still leans boneless against the wall, held up by his knees.

“ _Awesome_ ,” she says, grinning. She pops the button of his jeans and reaches in to stroke him so he shudders. “But I have something else in mind.”

He finds her at the aviary the next day, staring at the condors. She woke early, naked and warm in his bed, and she didn’t have the heart to wake him. She didn’t leave a note, but she did put her number in his phone.

She’s been staring at the birds for two hours, now, and it still doesn’t feel like enough.

“I know how it feels,” she tells them, looping her hand through the wire. They blink at her and go back to their feed. “You’re not meant for these cages,” she says. “You just want to see the world.”

One of them ruffles its feathers in her general direction, and she sighs. Her shoulder blades still ache a little, like they’re missing something.

Bellamy wanders up beside her, close enough that their arms are pressed together. “You know these birds almost went extinct in the eighties?” he says. “They had to catch all of them, and breed them in captivity. Then a few years later, when there were enough of them, they were released back into the wild.”

“I thought about getting a job here,” Clarke says, mild, and Bellamy glances down in surprise. “I thought it might be nice, being around them. I always thought we were kind of the same.”

“I can see the resemblance,” he agrees, wry, and Clarke elbows him.

“I don’t think I will,” she decides. “I used to think these cages meant they were safe, you know? Now I just think they’re sad.”

Bellamy hums, swinging an arm over her shoulders, and she nestles into his side. She can do this, now. She can have this.

“What do you want to do, now?” he asks, not pressing, just curious. Clarke shrugs.

“I met a friend in a horticulture forum,” she muses. “Monty. He runs a flower shop in the city. He might give me a job.”

“You could start a hybrid business,” Bellamy suggests. “Birds and bouquets.”

“You could work there too,” Clarke grins. “Birds, books, and bouquets.” She pauses, glancing up at him. “Who told you about my book, anyway? You never said.”

Bellamy shrugs, pulling her in even closer with the movement. “This girl I ran into at the library—she saw me looking it up, and said she knew a collector that had a copy.” His neck is turning red, which Clarke knows means he’s embarrassed, and she fights a grin. “I was going to return it,” he grumbles, and she pats his hand.

“Sure you were,” she agrees.

They’re at Grounders—Clarke helping O behind the counter, while Bellamy just sort of hangs around picking all the raisins out of the scones—when Wick and Raven show up.

“You’ll never guess what happened,” Wick announces, suspiciously excited. Beside him, Raven just looks mildly bored.

“What?” Clarke asks, hesitant. With Wick, excitement usually means something horrible, or unbelievable has happened, or both.

“Lexa quit!” he crows, and Clarke falters a little. Lexa had worked for her parents since Abby was first pregnant—she can’t really picture the mansion without her governess.

“ _What_?”

“She just packed her things and left,” he continues. “Gave her notice to Lincoln, and walked out. And then, when Aunt Abby tried to call her to convince her to stay, she found out _there is no Lexa_. She doesn’t exist, or at least, the name doesn’t. Or the social security number.”

Clarke stares at her cousin, slack-jawed, while Bellamy and O watch, vaguely amused.

“Who’s Lexa?” Bellamy asks, and Clarke fishes out her phone.

“My governess,” she explains, sifting through her camera roll. It’s a lot of drunken strangers from the bar and O’s party, and outtakes from the rewards photoshoot, but at the end are a few of her and Lexa. She clicks one and shows it to him.

Bellamy stares a little more intense than necessary, and then says, “That’s the girl from the library. The one that told me about the book.”

Wick hauls himself up on the counter, snatching one of Bellamy’s mauled scones. “Now, I’m not saying _she’s the witch_ ,” he muses, taking a bite. “But she’s _definitely_ the witch.”

Clarke meet’s Bellamy’s eye over his head. He raises a brow in silent question, and she shrugs. “Stranger things have happened, I guess,” she says, noncommittal. If Lexa is the witch, it probably means that wherever she is now, she’s happy. Hopefully she’ll send a post card, to let Clarke know.

She takes off her apron, and tosses it on the counter before grabbing Bellamy’s hand.

“What, that’s it?” Wick calls, incredulous. “You get a boyfriend, and suddenly you’re too good for us?”

Clarke just makes a face and tugs Bellamy towards the door. “We’ve got a date,” she says, grinning up at him.

“One of many,” he agrees. The bell chimes softly as they walk out the door.


End file.
